Until today, the federal law that prohibits "unlawful users" of controlled substances from possessing a gun was generally understood to cover all unlawful users of marijuana. But in a landmark decision issued this morning, the U.S. Supreme Court found the federal prosecution of a gun-possessing marijuana user to be in violation of that man's Second Amendment rights.
The decision came in the case of United States v. Hemani. "We do not question that sometimes an individual's unlawful use of marijuana (or any other controlled substance) may render him a danger to others," observed the majority opinion of Justice Neil Gorsuch. But here the government "asks us to conclude that anyone who regularly uses marijuana is categorically violent and dangerous without any further showing."
